The Razor’s Edge, by Madeleine Richey

This month I wrote about synthetic drugs (designer drugs). Up until recently they were legal, and there are still some that are, though the fight to outlaw them has been picking up in recent years. The trend started about 10 or 15 years ago in an attempt to manufacture a high inducing drug that was not illicit and wouldn’t result in hefty fines or jail time if you were caught in possession of it….[However], just because something is legal and you can buy it on the internet, does not make it safe to use. Drugs are a bad idea, but I don’t think teens will stop using them until we know exactly what they do and WHY they are bad for us. ~Madeleine

In the war we are waging against drugs, what I find to be rarely mentioned are synthetic drugs. Synthetic drugs (yes, synthetic as in fake, not real) can do the same amount of damage if not more as any other drug you might call ‘real.’

2C-E is a Synthetic Drug (also known as a Designer Drug). I thought it deserved special attention when I stumbled across an article about a party last year in which eleven teens overdosed on the designer drug, and one died as a result. Maybe you heard of it—it’s called the Blaine party.

17 March, 2011—In Blaine, Minnesota, 21-year-old Timothy Lamere bought the synthetic drug 2C-E, and provided it to friends (most still in their teens) at a party held in his house. At 1:00 AM police received a 911 call when one of the teens started to suffer horrible side effects from the overdose. All the victims were between the ages of 16 and 21. Some teens had fled the party. In total, eleven partygoers overdosed on 2C-E. 19-year-old Trevor Robinson was taken to the hospital along with ten others, and died only hours later from overdose. He left behind a five-month-old son, and friends who will suffer from the memories of that night until the day they die. Timothy Lamere was sentenced to nearly ten years in prison.

Synthetic drugs have been a legal alternative to other drugs for years. They were considered to be safer, and more importantly, you could buy them off the internet. What people don’t know, is that they are entirely different.

The teens at the Blaine party told police that they added 2C-E to drinks, and snorted it like cocaine. They had no idea how much was a lethal dose. And that was how Trevor Robinson died. Typically, when snorting cocaine you would insufflate (inhale) about 100-200 mg at, let’s call it ‘street purity.’ (The problem with cocaine and other illicit drugs is that since they are illegal, they aren’t regulated and you never know how pure they are, and therefore what’s in them.) A heavy dosage of 2C-E when snorted is about 10 mg. When Trevor Robinson and his friends decided to snort 2C-E like cocaine, they were ingesting 10 or more times the suggested dosage.

The bottom line? No two drugs are alike. Never assume anything. Don’t take anything without knowing what it is, what is in it, and how much is considered ‘lethal.’ If they’d known that 2C-E was ten times as powerful as your average dose of cocaine, their tragedy might have been avoided. Better yet, don’t do drugs at all. As a local sheriff my mother encountered said, “If you have teenagers who you even think are on the verge of trying synthetic drugs, it would be better for them if you beat them with a stick!” He had recently retired from working at the county jail, and was speaking in reference to the many times crazed synthetic addicts had been brought in.

A psychedelic drug, 2C-E (2,5-dimethoxy-4-ethylphenethylamine) is part of the 2C family. The effects of the average dose last anywhere between 6 and 10 hours, taking about 20-90 minutes to kick in. 2C-E is now a Schedule I controlled substance. It is illegal to buy, sell, or posses in the U.S.A. without a DEA license.

Madeleine, 16, says: “I want to help people and I want to tell stories, especially the stories of people who don’t have a voice of their own. Some of them have faces we recognize–the faces of family and friends, maybe even the face we see when we look in the mirror. I want to share with you the information I have about all these things, so that maybe you can recognize them and walk away from danger or help out a friend who doesn’t see it or saw it too late.” Visit her blog at http://yourstorydieswithyou.blogspot.com